Born Nancy Woodbridge Beach in 1887, the daughter of a minister, Sylvia Beach grew up in both Bridgeton, New Jersey and Baltimore, Maryland. She first arrived in Paris as a teenager in the early 1900s, living there for a few years due to her father’s job (Fitch 19). Sylvia’s return to Paris as an adult in 1917 marked the beginning of a long residency in Paris, in which she became fully immersed in the Parisian literary circle, particularly concerning American expatriates and other anglophones (Fitch 29). She was a contemporary of Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, T.S. Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, and many other non-French writers who had stints in Paris—they are often referred to as “The Lost Generation” (Fitch). She is perhaps most well-known for being the founder and owner of the original Shakespeare and Company bookshop, and for undertaking the publishing of James Joyce’s novel Ulysses.

Throughout her life, Sylvia Beach wore many hats—daughter, sister, student. In France, she became a publisher, bookseller, and friend to many literary legends. When she published her memoir of literary Paris’ interwar years in 1956, titled Shakespeare and Company after her shop, she added writer to that list.